Bujingai

Hands-on experience reveals the closest simulation of wire-fu yet.

Never let it be said that I'm unable to admit when I was wrong: based on the announcement, TGS trailer, and screenshots, I didn't have high hopes for Bujingai. (And I still contend that it's got perhaps the dumbest story ever in a game.) However, some hands-on time with the game, though, in a fuller version than what was available at TGS, has led me to give it a second chance.

There have been games that try to bring the Hong Kong wirework action style to videogames and failed; even those based on actual martial-arts movies (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) or stars (Rise to Honor) haven't been so good at conveying the feeling. Where Bujingai succeeds where those others fail is first by being astonishingly pretty, and second by having the lightning-fast style required to emulate a real wirework action sequence, yet still remain playable by humans.

It seemed like Bujingai was moving at 60 frames a second, but there was so much going on onscreen that I felt I must be seeing it wrong. I wasn't: where Nightshade's struggles with the PS2 hardware are obvious in its jagginess and plain hallways, Bujingai pulls off more impressive visuals with a better framerate -- it was honestly hard to believe the PS2 is capable of this. Every combo and spell pours tons of effects onto the screen withhout dropping a frame.

Which is important, since getting your timing down right is vital to the stream of counters fundamental to the best parts of Bujingai's sword combat. You have a certain number of "block petals," which deplete as you block attacks. While blocking, however, you have a chance to break the enemy's attack and launch into a counter of your own. The fun starts when you're up against skilled opponents who have their own counters and counter blocks, so that the back-and-forth becomes a dizzying display of wire-fu aerobatics. (If you get a counter volley going in the air, neither you nor the enemy will drop an inch until one of your resistance fails.)

Other nice touches and nods to its wire-fu origins include the requisite wall-running, also seen in Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden -- but in Bujingai, you're able to move diagonally and vertically, and with a modicum of skill, you can stay there for quite some time. There are enough aerial moves for a good player to stay up there for a while, air combo'ing to his or her heart's content.

We mean that, by the way: Bujingai provides several methods to keep a combo chain going into the thousands of hits. The counter begins when you start whaling on an enemy, and so long as you don't get hit or go too long without taking action, it'll stay running. You can extend it by using the hero's floating move, or by attacking inanimate objects, so that it won't reset even as you travel between rooms looking for new foes.

Keeping your combo going is the best way to look impressive, which is half the point of Bujingai, to the extent that the developers let you record certain sequences for playback on your memory card. The game's opening is one such sequence: after playing through a short corridor filled with enemies, the opening credits will begin, and they'll actually play over a version of your own actions enhanced with dynamic camerawork.

Bujingai is set for a May release, but we'll keep playing and update with impressions periodically until then. In the meantime, you can see the trailer for yourself.